"With a Conscience" - "Politics"- Becoming An American

                       "Politics"- Becoming An American

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."  - Plato

The summer has come to a close and while most of us are hopefully vacuuming the beach sand out of our cars and storing our bathing suits and shorts for next year, one can't help but turn our attentions to the reality that is presidential politics.  It's the fourth quarter in the fourth year of another presidential super bowl and I am hoping that those who are eligible to vote this year will do so. I'm worried about the continually growing apathy and lack of accurate knowledge of so many citizens.

This summer, my husband and I watched the sun set at Sunset Beach in Cape May, New Jersey.  As is customary, the American flag is flown, the "Star-Spangled Banner" is sung and as is customary, my husband and I put our right hand across our chest and kept it there until the flag was lowered.  Families, young people were all around us and I was shocked by how many of the young people of all ages kept texting, talking on their cells, and were not standing. Some were simply not paying any attention at all. Baseball caps and other hats remained on their heads.  Their parents, or other adults made no move to correct them.

As I observed this lack of patriotism, the simple courtesies and behavior that I learned along with walking and talking, it occurred to me that we had a much bigger issue here besides these courtesies.  We have apathy. We have a lack of pride. We have a lack of interest in facts.  Although I will be the first person to legitimately debate a political issue, I would never deny that I am grateful for what I have.  But I worked for it and I understand that it can all be gone in a "New York minute."  I understand gratitude.  I started to think that the reason we are seeing too much violence and anger and apathy in young people is that no one gave them boundaries.  No one taught them gratitude.

I am concerned that we are becoming so over-whelmed with ourselves that we are forgetting about one simple thing.  In order to protect our liberties, our right to voice opinions, we actually have to be interested in how politics is shaping not just our country but the world.  We need to make intelligent, factual based decisions and this includes when we vote.

Politicians can feed us rhetoric and feed us many promises.  They can instill us with the hope that things will change. We vote because we have a responsibility to point OUR government in the direction that will protect us and our financial security here and around the world.  

It's not just the presidential campaign that is important.  Every time we vote for a local town official, assemblyman, school budget, senator, congressman, we are promoting our desire to keep peace and exhibit control over our own destiny.  This is why we can't just vote based on emotion or sensational half-truths.  We must vote on facts.  We must expose ourselves to all of the sides of an issue before establishing our own.

We need to read more than one magazine or newspaper.  We need to listen to more than one news broadcast in the evening and with the technology we have at our fingertips this isn't terribly difficult.  We need to understand the difference between reliable information and "hype."  

During presidential elections, there is a certain amount of theater that takes place and it's rather entertaining at times to watch the political creativity develop.  But then the voting machines open up and you wonder,  "Are we voting based on emotion or on facts?"  Is politics based more on emotion? If this is the case, we need to figure out how to make our young people comfortable in educating themselves.  They need to respect free-will with responsibility.  They need to become sensitive again instead of "desensitized."  

What I witnessed at Sunset Beach this summer was a lack of  knowledge.  Dangerous. It's dangerous not to care about the world around you.  It's dangerous to care more about your things than you do your loved ones and the place you were born.  

Being an American means, you have the right and the responsibility to be heard and that means voting, that means speaking your truth respectfully and intelligently.  Being an American means you have made your decisions based on concrete truth and can have an intelligent debate with those who disagree with you.

Being an American means you respect the idea that we protect those who are weaker and stand for the idea that even though we may be different, we can respect those differences.  Being an American means you understand that it's important to follow your passions and defend the right for others to  to follow theirs.

Being an American means that we respect education and see the value of a differing opinion.  Apathy is not part of the American ideal.  Americans come together and Americans vote their conscience.  Americans vote.